Musings of a Michigan Transplant
Let’s rewind 22, almost 23 years. In a land, not very far away, amid the cornstalks still deep in their sod slumber, I was born in Iowa City, Iowa. I grew up and true to my 13 year old wish of going to another state for college; I up and moved to West Michigan for college. Upon graduation, people asked me, “Are you going to move back home to Iowa?”
That would be a no.
I do love Iowa. I enjoy seeing my family and fully enjoy each visit home. There is even a set list of things I have to do each time I go:
- Drink a matcha bubble tea at Caffe Crema
- Thrift shop at Revival for vintage clothes
- Kick around White Rabbit in search of snarky pins and sassy t-shirts
- Overlook downtown while sipping a black sea salt cappuccino in the café/bookstore Prairie Lights.
- Scope the next wave of local hipsters
- See if any of the trees have had a return of the sweater bombing
Iowa City is truly an oasis among the corn. Downtown there are pianos free to play whether you are 5 years old or a trained musician. It’s a college town so the public is politically active, meaning you may get lucky (or unlucky) and see a protest on a wide spectrum of causes.
It is also a very culturally diverse community for being in the Midwest. The University of Iowa brings in a lot of international students and families, especially for the medical school and acclaimed Children’s Hospital. Overall it made for a really cool place to grow up where I was fortunate to befriend and learn from people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, and for that I am grateful.
Iowa is a lovely state, albeit no one travels TO Iowa. You either live there or come to visit some relative or a friend that is really worth seeing to spend your free time in Iowa.
In fact, we have an entire store RAYGUN, that is devoted to the subculture of Iowans. It teases, pokes, prods, and elicits guffaws as people read t-shirts, magnets, postcards, and even baby onesies that make fun of all that is Iowa. Tall beer mugs give the Midwest Forecast; Monday being 87 degrees and “Breezy with a chance of death,” followed by Wednesday being -18 degrees and “Penguins March to get their Parkas,” and lastly, my personal favorite, Friday being 95 degrees with a “Strong Chance of Swamp Ass.”
You can even send your loved ones post cards that show images of what only you can assume is a skier somewhere high in the Alps, with the words “Greetings from Iowa!” blazing across the image. On the back of the post card the picture is tagged with the location, Boone, Iowa. If you have ever skied in Iowa, you would know that the most epic run down the “hills” that we have would take you a total of 5 minutes–that might even be a stretch. You would have to be giving it hearty dose of pizza legs the whole way down.
Another classic is a Hawaiian beach peppered with leafy palm trees and crystal clear water tagged with the location Lake McBride, Iowa. If you have ever had the pleasure of tubing on, or “beaching” in the sorry excuse of a beach front as only Iowans could succumb themselves to, you would understand this lake is, on a good day, a deep green-brown color with an ever present fish smell.
A local favorite is the Res, slang for Reservoir, which is also popular for boating, beaching, and hiking around. The staple of the Res is once you submerge anything in the brown water (full of secrets and probably too many dead things to linger on) past 5 inches into the water, all becomes lost in the brown void. But what joy of joys are at your fingertips when you can stage a full on jaws attack on your unsuspecting friends by submerging unnoticed into the murky depths to grab a juicy leg or an isolated arm and leave your friends screaming towards the imported sand beach!
That said, my first look upon the mass that is Lake Michigan was shocking. “Is this the ocean…? How can a lake be this big?” I thought, only to be further shook by the fact you could walk into the water and see all the way down to your toes. I had been to various oceans before in Spain, Belize, Mexico and the East Coast, but never had I experienced a lake like this, especially after such splendors to behold in Iowa.
Now, let’s get down to business…what in the Sam Heck is the deal with this Michigan pride?
Driving down the road, most cars with a Michigan license have a Mitten sticker, lake cutout, our better yet, a “Michigangster” sticker stuck on their back window.
If you travel anywhere in the state there is not one, but a multitude of stores that are devoted to Made in Michigan crafts, towels, coasters–really anything you can dream of! I thought that Texas was the only state that lived up to such a level of state pride. However, having lived in Michigan now for four years, I would say that Texas has a much quieter, friendlier, and overly polite rival here in the Midwest.
Having asked my coworkers who have lived in Michigan their whole life, “Why are all Michiganders so obsessed with Michigan?” they don’t give a concrete answer, but only pause slightly and begin to rattle off bullet points of the perks of living in Michigan. There may be no set answer for everyone, but I guess at the end of the day, as I send yet one more sunset dune picture to my family group chat while hiking….I guess I am just as obsessed too.
